


raventongue

by plantyourtreeswithme



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Durin's Day fic, F/M, Implied Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, M/M, Ravens of Erebor - Freeform, post-BotFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:37:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5032279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plantyourtreeswithme/pseuds/plantyourtreeswithme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It was the last thing she expected herself to remember, but somehow, the language of the birds of the Mountain had remained with her.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	raventongue

**Author's Note:**

> For [Durin's Day](http://acefandomite.tumblr.com/post/128587464207/durins-day).
> 
> This fic is for the kind, amazing [Alanna](http://alanna232.tumblr.com), who's been an avid supporter of my work and projects for a long time now. She drew me a beautiful drawing to go with this fic, and I'm so happy that she did, it's so lovely!!
> 
> I've used an html feature that translates Khuzdul and Raventongue if you scroll your mouse over it. It's really cool and available [here](http://plantyourtreeswithme.tumblr.com/post/125435570772/hi-first-of-all-i-want-to-say-that-your-writing) if you want to use it. Translations are also available at the end if you're on mobile.

She had made Kíli take the runestone as a promise - a promise that not only he would return to her, but his brother and uncle, as well.

Fíli was certainly old enough to fend for himself; he'd been on countless journeys with Thorin and some of the older members of the Company, gone on warg patrol hundreds of times when his father, Víli, had still been alive. He knew how to take care of his brother, and Thorin knew how to take care of both of the boys.

Dís shouldn't have worried, but she couldn't help it. So she had pressed the polished labradorite into her youngest son's hand, the same runestone that her mother, Frerís, had given her on the day of the Battle of Azanulbizar.

"Survive, dearest," she'd said in rough Westron, placing the talisman on her daughter's palm and gently closing her fingers around it.  _"Innikh dê."_

"I will,  _'amad_."

She lost her mother, father, grandfather, and brother to the war.

~~Her ghosts still haunted her dreams, sending her nauseating images of broken, mangled bodies and causing her to wake up in a sweat. Sometimes she screamed. Sometimes she didn't.~~

Víli had a mining accident twenty years after Kee was born. They'd been hearing rumors from surrounding Big Folk villages that there was gold down in Bree, and of course he'd gone to investigate, ever a guild member. The guilds, of course, had been completely forgotten after the Sack - there'd been many,  _many_ other things to think about, and she and Thorin had been the ones doing most of the thinking - but Víli still dreamt of what he called "the great guilds of old".

"Gold, Dís," he'd said excitedly one frenzied night, after she'd finally gotten the boys into bed. "We can be rich again, we can - we can - take back Erebor, we could - could - live a life of l-luxury -"

His stutter always came back when he was excited. It'd been the first thing she'd picked up about him when they'd met; the way he stuttered whenever he was around her. It was completely unheard of for dwarrows, but Víli's family had managed to keep it very hushed up. It had only emerged and become noticeable when they'd first met in the aftermath of the Battle of Azanulbizar.

"You there," she'd called after him as he disappeared around a tent, only a few days after the war had ended. "Have you seen my brothers?"

"Thorin and Frerin, y-your highness?"

"Yes, that's them," she said, striding forward confidently. "I heard from Balin that Frerin had been terribly wounded, but I don't believe it..."

He'd nearly gulped. "Your highness, Fr-Frerin is dead. The O-Oakenshield has lived."

Dís had frowned at that. "Oakenshield?"

They talked ever so often on the journey to Ered Luin, running into each other at the campfire or when they were being given rations. Víli became a close friend of hers, and after a while, the stutter disappeared. They spoke often about how if they married, it would benefit both of their families and help to further unite the village.

So when he proposed, she wasn't really as surprised as she should have been.

Víli's stutter had made a reappearance when he discovered her affair with Dwalin. He hadn't been mad, of course, their marriage being arranged and all; but he'd certainly been disappointed in her for not being as faithful as she should've been.

"Why?" he'd said simply, after shutting the door after Dwalin with a soft  _snap_.

Dís couldn't answer that, so she settled with, "Because I was bored."

He stared at her for a while, and she felt so guilty for betraying his trust that she felt bile rising in her throat.

She didn't say she was sorry. How could she apologize for something that she would never be forgiven for?

After a few years, the bond mended itself, as bonds often do, and she loved Víli again. (Not that she'd never loved him in the first place; it just hadn't ever been romantic, only platonic.) They had Fee and Kee, and she could talk to Dwalin without avoiding his gaze again, and Thorin was finally happy again - she'd caught him eyeing one of the Firebeard dams on Bombur's side down in the pub, and he'd voiced his thoughts on wanting to maybe settle down soon - and everything seemed like it was going to be all right -

And then Víli went on the mining expedition.

And he hadn't come back.

Dís had been left without her best friend, her  _buhel_ , her Víli.

She didn't know what to do with herself, so she ransacked their bedroom, looking for something,  _anything_ , that could bring Víli back to her. She was so,  _so_ lost without him...

That was how she came across the labradorite.

It had been locked in the chest beneath their bed, where she had put all of the things from Erebor that were just too painful to keep out around the house.

As she fondled the smooth stone between her fingers, she wondered why she hadn't given it to her husband.

Fifty-six years later, she gave it to Kíli with the same promise her mother had given to her.

 

* * *

 

Another year passed, and a raven of Erebor payed her a visit, sitting on the gate of the wooden fence Víli had built a few months after their wedding.

She hadn't expected to see a bird like that again in a thousand years.

 _"- ------- --- ---, -------- -- ------,"_ it said to her in Raventongue.  _"- -- ----, ------ -- --- ------ -- ------, --- -- --- ----- ----."_

It was the last thing she expected herself to remember, but somehow, the language of the birds of the Mountain had remained with her.

_ "- ---- ------ --- -------." _

Roäc extended his leg to her, and she plucked the tightly rolled-up parchment from the string that had bound it to the raven. She thanked the bird, and, with a rustling of feathers, it was gone again.

The letter had been written in the angular letters of cirth, but the hand was not one that she recognized; and she was familiar with almost all of the Company's runes.

 

_"Dís,_

_You and I have never met, but your brother, Thorin, spoke very highly and often of you during the time we spent together. He utterly lamented the lack of your presence on our journey, and it seems that a bit of his sorrow has passed on to me, as well - I also regret not having the opportunity to meet you. From the way Thorin spoke of you, you were a very outstanding dwarrowdam._

_I suppose I should introduce myself to you now by way of mail. Not the most sufficient way to meet, I suppose, but it'll have to do. My name is Bilbo Baggins, and I am - or was - a hobbit of great respectability. I come from a very rich family called the Tooks, and I lived in the Shire as of last year. I had planned to take up residence in Erebor with Thorin, who was my betrothed, but things have... changed._

_You will be happy to hear that the Lonely Mountain was recently reclaimed in the name of the line of Durin. I myself played a rather prominent role in the taking-back of the lost kingdom, helping Thorin's Company escape from the elvenking's dungeons in Mirkwood, rescuing them from giant spiders, if you will believe it, and saving Thorin's life numerous times._

_Oh, and I spoke to the dragon and lived. There's that, too._

_You're probably wondering what my role in the Company was - well, I was the burglar. I was the one that snuck into the Mountain to talk to Smaug and discover his weaknesses, if there were any. I was the one that stole the Arkenstone and smuggled it out of the kingdom right under the king's nose. The wizard, Gandalf - I believe your people call him Tharkûn, however - recruited me for the quest, and I was introduced to the entire Company, and invited on the trip, right in the comfort of my own home._

_I am sitting in my favorite armchair at the moment, in my hobbithole, Bag End, in the midst of Hobbiton,_ finally _home after a year of adventuring and travelling -_

_And I have never felt less at home._

_It does not please me to inform you of this, but during the events of the Battle of the Five Armies - as those that survived are now calling it - your brother and two sons were killed."_

 

Dís staggered backwards, the letter clutched in her hands. The backs of her feet hit the porch, and she sat down hard, her knuckles clenched white against the yellow of the parchment.

She took a shuddering breath, decided that her mysterious correspondent was fibbing, and continued reading.

 

_"Thorin was very, very dear to me, and we became extremely close over the course of our journey. I will not deny any longer how very deeply I was in love with him. However, once we reached the Mountain and the dragon was killed, he developed a strange illness of the mind that I believe your own grandfather once had: dragon sickness. He coveted gold and jewels more than anything in Arda. The sickness also took the one thing dearest to his heart and twisted it, so that he was possessive and lustful for it, valuing it almost as much - if not more - than his gems._

_At the time, that one thing was me._

_I'd like to think I was close enough to him to help him snap out of it, but he did that all on his own. It was at some point during the battle; before, he had refused to let his kin fight, letting Dáin and his people take the brunt of the fighting. Then he and the Company burst out of the Mountain with the loudest battle cry I've ever heard (not that I've heard a lot of battle cries)._

_I met Thorin up on Ravenhill, and it was there that he proposed to me. He used no flashy, sparkling diamonds or silver rings, for those had lost all meaning to him; instead, he used his own words and the adrenaline of the battle to create what seemed to me an incredibly perfect proposal._

_It was foolish of us to rush into decisions that we would perhaps regret afterwards, but I would never in a million years say no to him._

_His last words were, 'If more of us valued home above gold, it would be a merrier world.'_

_I am a writer by nature, and I was going to write my tale down for someone to read - I do not intend on producing any heirs anytime soon - but then I remembered how worried you would be for your sons and brother. I previously did not know that I could speak or write in Khuzdul, but as soon as I put my pen to paper, I realized that I could. I have been exposed to dwarves for far too long._

_I do not think that I will ever be able to return to Erebor, no matter how many times I say it. There are ghosts waiting for me there, and I do not wish to encounter them anytime soon._

_Once again, I offer my sincerest sympathy for your loss. I feel it almost as deeply as you do._

_If you would like to visit someday, tea is at four. I live in Hobbiton of the Shire. Ask any hobbit you encounter, and they'll tell you where Bag End is._

_Most sincerely,_

_Bilbo Baggins"_

 

Dís sat on the edge of the porch and sobbed for hours.

~~It was Víli all over again.~~

The runestone hadn't worked like she'd thought it would.

It had failed her.

~~No, she had failed herself.~~

Why hadn't she been there to protect her boys? Why hadn't  _Thorin_ protected her boys? Had he been too caught up in his dragon sickness to even care for his nephews, his family?

There was a sudden tearing sound, and she looked down to see herself ripping the letter to shreds.

She immediately regretted it, because she might actually have taken Bilbo up on his offer someday.

 

* * *

 

The three loud knocks at Bilbo's door reminded him of the ones from ten years ago, and he took a shuddering breath as he went to answer it.

A dwarrowdam wearing a gray cloak was standing there, her eyes the same shade of blue as her brother's.

"Hello," she said haltingly, as if she were  _nervous_. "My name is -"

"Dís!" he said, smiling. "Yes, I've been expecting you for nearly nine years now. Do come in, will you? You're right on time, the kettle's whistling right now."

She hesitated, then stepped over the threshold with finality.

~~Just like her brother had ten years ago.~~

 

* * *

 

Dís fell in love with the smial almost immediately.

It was cosy, comfortable, and warm, reminding her of the way she had always felt when Víli and the boys made her sit down next to the fireplace to recite her memorized story of the Sack.

Bilbo was a gracious host, telling her to take her pick of whatever she wanted from the pantry - he seemed to know exactly how to cater to dwarves - and bringing out his best dishes. She understood why Thorin had fallen for the little hobbit immediately. He was almost the exact opposite of everything Thorin had been, a perfect counter to the brooding, sometimes brash prince.

The hobbit had most certainly brought out the good in him.

(She noticed, on her grand tour of Bag End, that on one of the walls of the study, there was a framed drawing of the two of them sitting on some sort of outcrop of rock.

The way they looked at each other in the sketch perfectly conveyed the feelings of any set of pining dwarrows that doesn't know the other is in love with them - lovestruck, blissful, and ignorant.

She knew because that was the way Víli had used to look at her.)

**Author's Note:**

>  **Khuzdul Translations (in order of appearance)**  
>  _Innikh dê._ \- Return to me.  
>  _'amad_ \- mother  
>  _buhel_ \- friend of all friends
> 
>  **Raventongue Translations (in order of appearance)**  
>  _\- ------- --- ---, -------- -- ------._ \- A message for Dís, daughter of Thráin.  
>  _\- -- ----, ------ -- --- ------ -- ------, --- -- --- ----- ----._ \- I am Roäc, leader of the ravens of Erebor, son of the great Carc.  
>  _\- ---- ------ --- -------._ \- I will accept the message.


End file.
